When running a membership business, it's often helpful to ask yourself how your approach compares to others. Whether analyzing if your churn rate is too high or if you are underpricing your membership, or seeking to measure the lifetime value of your customers, understanding benchmarks and averages among video creators in your industry can give you the data-driven insights you need to optimize your subscription strategy.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the key features of Uscreen’s Subscription Benchmark Analytics.
Views
Within the Subscription Benchmark Analytics report, you can view benchmarks and averages based on two main views:
The Industry Averages table shows you how your subscription metrics compare to the average for the selected industry in the report filter. This view allows you to easily review your subscription metrics (disaggregated by monthly versus annual plans, and combined) compared to the selected Industry filter.
The Benchmarks charts show you the same metrics but with 25%/50%/75% quartile comparisons to give you a sense of how your metrics stack up to the range of sites across the selected industry.
Filters
The only filter available in this report is the Industry filter, which allows you to compare your subscription metrics against the following comparison groups:
All Businesses: Includes all businesses considered in the benchmark calculations.
Education & Coaching: Includes businesses that primarily focus on delivering educational content, courses, or coaching services.
Faith & Spirituality: Includes businesses offering religious or spiritual content.
Fitness: Includes businesses offering fitness-related content, such as workout programs, training plans, or health-focused subscriptions.
Media & Entertainment: Includes businesses that provide content like music, videos, or other forms of entertainment.
Top Businesses: Includes the top 100 businesses on our platform, based on net sales.
Yoga & Wellness: Includes businesses specializing in yoga, meditation, and wellness-related content.
Most of Uscreen Analytics allows you to drill down into underlying data and explore different date ranges and granularities. However, this report presents a snapshot of aggregated data from other businesses, so it does not allow for detailed exploration. The purpose of this report is to provide a high-level benchmark, offering a clear comparison of metrics at a given point in time for strategic decision-making.
Metrics
The key subscription metrics included in this report are the following:
Listed Price (USD) reflects the average price of your subscription for all paid invoices before any discounts or gift cards are applied
Discount (%) reflects the average percent difference between the listed price and the sale price, or the amount that the customer paid
Average Revenue per User (USD), commonly known as ARPU, identifies how much revenue the average active customer is accounting for in your subscription, calculated as MRR / paying members
Share of Subscription Revenue (%) captures the percentage of subscription net sales for the respective billing interval, with the goal of helping you understand how much of your subscription revenue is coming from monthly versus annual plans compared to other sites
Share of Subscription Transactions (%) captures the percentage of subscription sales (invoices paid) for the respective billing interval, with the goal of helping you understand how much of your subscription sales is coming from monthly versus annual plans compared to other sites
Churn Rate (%) reflects the percentage of subscribers who cancel their subscription each month
Twelve Month Retention (%) reflects the percentage of subscribers who remain subscribed for at least 12 months, calculated as number of customers still active at the end of month 12 after initial subscription sign-up / number of customers with an initial subscription sign-up
Lifetime (months) indicates the expected number of months that a customer will continue subscribing to your membership, calculated as 1 / churn rate
Lifetime (USD), commonly known as LTV, indicates the predicted subscription revenue attributed to the customer over their entirety of your business relationship, calculated as ARPU * Lifetime (months)
This is not an exhaustive list of metrics you can and should be tracking to optimize your subscription business, but ones that content creators cite as the most useful in evaluating their membership strategy.
Additional Notes
The only businesses included in the comparison groups are those on a contract-based subscription with Uscreen making at least $1K USD in net sales per month. This approach ensures benchmarks and averages are not understated by including businesses that are not fully active.
This report is only updated every six months due to its nature as a benchmark. Benchmarks are designed to provide stable reference points, which means they shouldn’t change frequently. They are intended to guide strategic decision-making and are most valuable when used during specific moments for planning and evaluation.
The calculations include 6 months of data.